


the songbirds are singing, they know the score

by kimwexler



Category: Better Call Saul (TV), Breaking Bad
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - High School, Chuck and Jimmy don't have a large age difference, F/M, Jimmy is shy and horny, but like horny for love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-12
Updated: 2020-03-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23112760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimwexler/pseuds/kimwexler
Summary: 5 times kim wanted to kiss jimmy + the 1 time jimmy kissed kim
Relationships: Jimmy McGill | Saul Goodman & Kim Wexler, Jimmy McGill | Saul Goodman/Kim Wexler
Comments: 13
Kudos: 31





	the songbirds are singing, they know the score

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vernaflamingo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vernaflamingo/gifts).



> thank you veronica for beta-ing this! <3  
> (title from fleetwood mac's 'songbird')

1.

Standing here on Howie's porch, I try and avoid feeling any more like a cliche than I already do. I don't belong here, or in any social situation really, and I'm okay with that. I just wish it wasn't so cold, but at least it's quiet. Quiet enough.

Howard, who's more well-known by his nickname of 'Howie,' had invited me and a couple of other debate kids over for a couple of drinks while his parents were on a ski trip. I guess word got out though, because the invite had definitely spread beyond our twelve-person debate club. There didn't seem to be any discrimination on who was allowed in either, judging by the crowd inside.

I hear the porch door behind me open and close. I debate whether I should turn around, even when a voice greets me, quiet and low.

"Hey," the voice says. "Do you have a light?"

"I do," I say, turning.

I'm surprised I didn't recognize his voice. It's Jimmy. He looks older... stockier now, with much longer hair, but it's without a doubt Jimmy.

It's like he's aged twenty years in only two, with his shaggy brown hair reaching mullet territory and his once boyish face sharpening out. Looking at him, I try and figure out what was the last time I had seen him. It couldn't have been Chuck's graduation, was it?

"Kim? Long time, no see, baby."

I stand to greet him, and there's absolutely no way I can avoid being folded into an enormous marijuana-scented hug. "Hi, Jimmy." I say shortly. I'm not a hugger.

"I haven't seen you since I dropped out!" he says brightly, putting his hands on my shoulder. He has almost a foot on me now.

"You did what?"

"You haven't noticed I've been gone for a few months?"

It wasn't like we we're in any of the same classes. I'm pretty sure Jimmy was in shop class for the first half the day, and all three lunch periods afterwards. Not many opportunities to encounter each other. "I haven't seen you since Chuck graduated, actually."

"Oh yeah," he says. "I dropped out. As soon as I turned 16 I was in the front office, signing my prison release forms." He makes a gesture of a grand signature. "But I'm back now. As soon as my old man found out that I wasn't going, he marched me back into the school and forced me into every academic class possible."

"Charles did that?" I say with slight disbelief. It was hard to imagine Jimmy's meek father yanking him into the school by his ear. I don't think he was even the type to correct a waitress on an incorrect order.

"Well, no, he didn't exactly. But he did have a chat with me that made me feel guilty enough into at least finishing out the year with a few credits."

"That's good."

"Do you have that light?"

"Oh, yeah." I rummage in my crossbody, pushing aside receipts and books to find it. "Here."

Jimmy takes it, then easily lights his cigarette. I have to contain a sigh of relief that it wasn't pot. I wouldn't be able to explain that scent to my mom very easily later tonight. I doubt she cared anyways.

"I didn't know you smoked," Jimmy says, smoking cooly.

"I uh, had to light the National Honor Society induction candles last week." (Good cover-up Kim. A+.)

"Right on, right on."

We sit in silence, as he continues to smoke, and I dig my sneaker into the dirt. Almost shyly, he offers me his cigarette, and I easily take it from him, taking a long drag.

"What have you been up to?" he asks.

I shrug, handing the cigarette back to him. "Debate club. Yearbook. I tutor some middle school kids in math some days after school. It's easy money."

"So smart girl shit."

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Chuck would be proud."

Jimmy's older brother, Chuck, had been somewhat of a mentor to me for the first two years of high school.

I had tested into being able to take AP classes, which were generally only offered for seniors, and I was in desperate need of academic help. Chuck had been in a lot of the same classes when he was my age, so he gratefully accepted when I asked him to tutor me.

A couple of days a week, Chuck would drive me back to his house to chip away at my heavy AP workload. I would sit in the backseat with Jimmy, innocently trying to butt into conversation with Chuck and his girlfriend Rebecca. Usually, I would just fall into comfortable conversation with the younger McGill brother, lightly discussing last night's episode of the Six Million Dollar Man.  
After a few hours of AP Physics and Calc BC, I would be invited by their Mother to stay later for dinner. I would be treated to meals of sugared sweet potatoes, roasted cabbage, Girl Scout cookie ice cream sundaes, and Jimmy's socked foot lightly brushing against mine.

Sitting here now, I'm half surprised he hasn't slid his foot across the dirt to touch mine. I sort of wish he would.

2.

I expected coming back to school to be one of the worst things to ever happen to me. After a year and a half of doing nothing but smoking weed, eating Cheetos and masturbating, I knew that spending eight hours a day in class was going to be nothing short of Chinese water torture.

It got better once that I remembered Kim existed. Well, I never forgot she existed, it's just different now that I can see her in front of me. She's just as smart as I remembered and a whole lot prettier too, which I'm not sure how that happened. She was pretty before, but now I don't even have a word to describe it. During our next tutoring session, I'll have to ask Kim for a synonym for pretty. It'll be very casual though. She would never know I was alluding to her.

I'm not sure how I wrangled her into tutoring me, but I was proud of myself for it. I'd be able to bring up my grades, and I'd get to hang out with Kim.  
Right now, we're sitting at my dining room table as she works on my Algebra homework. Originally, she had tried to teach me all the formulas and the variables and operations, but gave up as soon as she realized I couldn't do long division. Now she just quickly finishes my homework, and then we move on to something else. On the best days, we'll walk down to the Dog House and get hot dogs and fries, but usually we just watch tv with my family.

Neither of us are very popular, so it's rare we're invited anywhere. She sometimes hangs around some girls from yearbook, Frannie and Paige, and sometimes I hang around with some guys I ran with during my drop-out phase. But most of the time, we're with each other. I don't think either of us meant for that to happen, but that's how it is now.

"I could learn that I bet. If I tried." I offer, watching her scribble in my notebook, attempting to copy my handwriting. I told her that I didn't think Mrs. Hobson would notice, but Kim swears she would notice. Kim was her favorite student, I guess.

She shakes her head. "I'm almost done anyway." A few more scratches and she's done, sliding the notebook into my backpack. "Dog House?"

It's Friday, and it's not like we have anything else to do. "Okay."

My prized possession is my 1966 Mercury Marquis. Now. I don't know shit about cars. I don't know how to take care of one and I barely know how to drive one. But let me tell you. My Marquis is my baby, with her green leather seats and wooden siding. It's a piece of shit car, but it's my piece of shit.

A few years back, I traded a summer's supply of acid and bud to some neighbor kid who was graduating and moving out. He was looking to sell all his stuff before headed off on his three month hike on the Appalachian Trail. He gave me his car and half of his vinyls for a few tabs and a grocery bag full of pot. Damn hippie.

Driving in it, I feel like a superstar. And with the addition of Kim in the passenger side, I'm a real Burt Reynolds. She gives me directions to the fast-food shack, even though we'd been there several times already. I don't say anything, though, sometimes pretending to not hear her instructions, and purposely missing turns. She scolds me and I act confused and we laugh and laugh.

The food at the Dog House kinda blows. Usually the hot dogs are cold and bland, but they're only a quarter with all the fixings. You can't complain about that.

Kim sits across from me, picking at my french fries and reading a paper that was left on the picnic table from the customers before.

"What're you looking at?"

"Horoscopes." she replies.

"Yeah, see, I wouldn't peg you as a horoscope girl."

"That's something a Pisces would say."

"Is that what I am?"

She turns the paper to face me, pointing at the small icon of two koi fish. Yep, March 5, Pisces. Experiment with human emotion, it instructs me.

"What's it say?" she asks, and I turn it towards her.

"Oh." she grins. "Kinky!"

We finish up our meal, and then resort to driving around the suburbs of Albuquerque. We look at houses and the people buzzing around the street corners and bars. Eventually, time creeps to a pretty unreasonable hour, and I feel obliged to bring her home.

Driving into the neighborhood, she fights me on taking her home. "She won't even notice if I'm home or not!"

"I don't care. I don't want your Mom hating me."

"She already hates you and probably me too. Why fight it?"

"Sorry, ol' gal." I say, pulling up to her house.

It's a dark orange duplex, with a broken fountain in the front yard. Her bedroom window faces the street, with a huge potted plant sitting on the sill. "It's a birth plant. My mom got it as a gift when I was born." I remember her telling me, when I had come over to her house for the first time. "As long as the plants happy and healthy, I should be too."

Staring at the enormous plant in the window, she lightly clears her throat. "I had fun tonight." she says.

"Me too."

"I, uh..." she awkwardly tries to find the footing in her words. "I'm real glad you're back in my life, Jimmy."

I want to tell her just how much I agree. How much I had missed her and just how much she had come across my mind when I was busy fucking my life over. If this was a movie, I would pull her close and kiss her with everything I had, proclaiming how very glad that, she too, was back in my life.

But I don't. "Goodnight, Kim." I say weakly.

"Night, Jimmy." she replies, and then she leaves my car. I watch her go up to her door, and with her every step, I think of everything I could have said instead.

I missed you too, Kim.

3.

I've always been a big Halloween person. As long as I could remember, I've been obsessed, planning my costume months ahead of the Holiday. It's how I differentiate years, really. Fourth grade? Oh, that was the year I was Bambi. Freshman year? An embarrassingly and obviously homemade Bat Girl costume. This year? I'm crouched in a flat wooden area, watching Jimmy roll a blunt.

"It's a tradition," he told me, as we ate lunch together in the back of the yearbook room. "Marco says it's the only holiday where it's socially acceptable to get totally baked."

(Marco is Jimmy's best friend. He isn't around much after he was expelled for taking acid at a junior varsity soccer game and mooning the opposing team.)

I think I'm a pretty disappointing stand-in for Jimmy's stoner best friend. I've never smoked in my life, besides an occasional stress cigarette. My best friend Paige says it's because I need total control at all times, but I don't know about that. I think it's okay to lose yourself every once in a while.

"What time do I gotta get you home?" he asks, scattering a pinch of green into the paper. He then taps and folds the paper into a dense roll, sealing it all with a lick.

I watch him carefully. "Uh. Not sure." We both know that my mom doesn't care when or if I come, but he still asks.

Jimmy carefully holds a lighter to the end of the joint (which really just seems to me to be made out of paper), inhales deeply, then holds it out for me. "I can't be celebrating alone."

I must have been slow in my response, because he decides just to lift the joint up to my mouth. Shyly, I bring my face forward, taking the roll between my teeth. I inhale, then promptly cough everything up. "I don't feel anything."

"Try again."

And I do, a few times actually, until I'm able to easily hit off the joint without almost vomiting. We continue like this for a while, until the blunt is barely big enough for Jimmy to hold between his fingers. He lets me finish it off, then crushes underneath his sneaker.

We sit in silence for a few minutes, enjoying the cool Autumn temperature and the bed of grass we were perched on. Flat on the ground, I itch to pull him next to me, or at least take his hand. That may be the weed talking though, but I decide to make note of it for later on.

Eventually, I'm able to gather enough stamina to inch over my foot a little to barely tap his. He taps back. We tap back and forth, his ratty sneaker knocking against my white boot, each time becoming increasingly more playful and intense. With each tap, we snicker like it's the funniest thing in the world. We continue this game until it's not as funny anymore, and ending it when I turn on to my side, staring at Jimmy's profile.

"What?" he says, glancing at me with the side of his eye.

I shake my head. "Nothing."

"Come on."

He pulls me up into a standing position, telling me we had to get home soon or his parents would start to worry. I reluctantly agree (even though I feel like mush and don't feel like walking very much at all) and we start the short back to his house from the trail.

As I walk, I realize just how stoned I am. Jimmy notices, I think, because he gingerly takes my hand, not saying much afterwards. I feel like my hand's been electrocuted.

Charles and Ruth don't bother us intensely when we return. They're dressed in homemade Charlie Brown and Lucy costumes, too busy handing out candy to children passing by to question us. I politely greet them, then follow Jimmy down the hall.

We find ourselves in the basement. Jimmy plays around with the record machine in the corner of the room, attentively adjusting the albums and needle for optimal listening. After what feels like a stretch of three hours, (it was probably just a few minutes) he gives up, landing on a Bowie vinyl with only a few scratches and pops.

"I almost forgot." He says, ducking beyond the couch. He returns with an enormous pack of Twizzlers.

"Your favorite candy for your favorite holiday."

I smile, opening the pack. "How'd you remember?"

"When we went trick or treating in ninth grade you asked at every door if they had Twizzlers."

He's right. He had dressed as Han Solo and I was Princess Leia, using a backward bathrobe for the iconic white gown. It was a last-minute costume, not at all like myself, but I decided to go trick or treating with Jimmy at the last second. He had been begging me for weeks, and I had brushed him off every time, but it wasn't until the day of I realized I had no one else to really spend it with.

We spent hours going house to house, filling our pillowcase bags, not really caring that we were probably too old for the holiday. It was the first time since my Dad's death that I felt like I was alive again.  
Laying on the floor next to Jimmy, I feel that feeling again.

4.

Today, Kim and I have chosen to study on the back porch. It's early November, and the temperature has just started to drop enough to where it's enjoyable. Sipping on apple cider that my mom made for us, Kim breezes through my bio homework while I engage myself with a hearty game of catch with Molly. 

She's a good, but old, dog- chestnut brown and silky. Named after our grandmother, she’s an Irish Setter and technically belongs to Chuck. But since he's gone off to college, she follows me around non-stop. It's not uncommon I fall asleep with her at my feet, listening to the geriatric mutt grunt at her doggy dreams. She may be old, but God, does she love fetch.

Kim finishes up my homework with a sigh. "What's next?"

"Book report." I reply.

"What book?"

"Gatsby."

I watch as the corners of her mouth turn up in a sly smile. "You read The Great Gatsby?" she questions me.

"I saw the movie with Robert Redford in Junior High. And that should be enough to write a four page essay on the American Dream."

She shakes her head. "Unacceptable." she says with mock disappointment, standing up.

I play along with her. "Hey, where you going? Are you jealous I saw your favorite movie with my mom instead of you?"

"It's not my favorite movie. Ice Station Zebra is my favorite movie."

A few minutes later, we find ourselves sitting on my bedroom floor. She had pushed her way upstairs on the hunt to find the Gatsby paperback, ignoring my desire to stay downstairs where it's safe and in the view of my parents. Marco tells me when a girl asks you to go up to your room, you'll probably get a handjob. That absolutely terrifies me and kinda excites me, but I don't think Kim is going there anytime soon.

Sitting across from her on my rug, I hate myself for not cleaning up at all before she came. Wrappers and receipts litter the floor, my fitted sheet sits lamely on top of the mattress instead of tucked under, and my laundry bin is overflowing (which explains why I'm wearing a flannel stolen from my Dad's closet). I even had to kick a girly magazine underneath my bed before Kim caught a glance of it.

She doesn't seem disturbed by the messiness ("Hey, what else would I expect from a seventeen year old boy?") and is much more focused on her newfound goal of getting me through the entirety of The Great Gatsby. Leaning against my bed (dangerously close to the porno mag), she starts the first chapter. "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since..."

And I listen. She breezes through a good fifty pages, articulating every T and S and changing her voice slightly for each character. I never take my eyes off of her, and with every word, I become more fucked. Only when she asks me to switch off reading, I'm pulled out of my rose-tinted world.

"My voice hurts a little." she says, and I nod quickly, taking the book from her. I'm a little bit of a slow reader, but my words become more trained as the book goes on. We become invested, peppering in our gossip-y opinions about the characters and what characters we can apply to each other and our friends.

As I read the pinnacle scene of the car crash, Kim gingerly lays her head on my shoulder. I feel like I've been struck by lightning, but I don't jump away. I keep her position, her electricity coursing through me and hitching my words slightly. I'm doing fine until she places her fingers on the paperback, slightly pushing it down. She stares at me. The electricity is so much stronger when I'm looking at her.

"Jimmy." she says softly.

"We're almost done with the book." I say, looking her up and down nervously. "If you want to kee-"

Kim puts her hand on my cheek, stopping me mid-sentence. "What?" I say dumbly, leaning back from her hand. She doesn't say anything, instead tilting her head, studying me completely.

"What are we doing?"

I look around, then down, then back at her. "Reading Gatsby." I respond. I know that's not at all what she wanted to hear, but it's all I could manage to say.

She gives me a curt nod, then excuses herself, lifting her body off the rug and leaving the room. I don't go after her like I should.

5.

I'm in a deep sleep when I'm woken up by the shrill rings of my telephone. At first, it weaves itself into my dream, but eventually I stir awake and realize it's reality. (In the few months since I've gotten a telephone, I haven't gotten used to middle-of-the-night phone calls. These were popular with Jimmy.)

Maybe the family landline wasn't so bad, but then I remember my sister listening in on Jimmy and I's conversations on the other line, holding her breath. Nothing is worse than being grilled at dinner about your boyfriend when he's not even your boyfriend.

Groggily, I pad across the room and answer the phone.

"Hello?" I croak.

"Kim!"

It's Francesca. She sounds like she's at a party, with music and people filling up the pauses around her voice. I don't like parties very much, so I pretend like it doesn't hurt that I wasn't invited.

"Hi, Frannie."

"Where are you? Jimmy just got his shit rocked!" she says over the noise.

"Huh?" I say, not sure what she meant, or really what she said at all. There's a shuffle in sound and someone else comes on the line.

"Hello, Kim?" It's Howie.

"Hi. What's going on? What's wrong with Jimmy?" I was still trying to decipher if he'd been decked or just taken too many shots. Either is possible, but one was more worrying.

Through a mix of Frannie and Howie wrestling over the phone, they explain to me that Jimmy had been jumped pretty bad from what they expected to be a deal gone wrong. They wanted me to go check up on him.

"Why me?" I ask.

"Aren't you his girlfriend?" Howie asks, and I stumble to find words.

"Well..." I find my footing. "Is he at home?"

"He should be heading home now."

I thank them both, even though I'm not really sure why, and hang up the phone. Jimmy getting beat wasn't really a new thing. He can be pretty tricky with his deals, regularly ripping newbies and jackasses off, usually landing him in some punchable situations. However, if it's bad enough for me to be called, maybe I should be there to help him out. I wouldn't mind seeing him tonight, anyways.

I borrow my sister's bike for the few block trip to Jimmy's. The whole time, I can't stop thinking about what Howie said to me. Do people really think Jimmy and I are dating? I can’t even articulate how I feel about that... Jimmy and I dating. The idea fogs my head, up until I reach Jimmy's house.

The lights are off inside, and his horrible woody car isn't in the driveway. I know I could easily go inside with the hideaway key in the mailbox, but I fear waking up Charles and Ruth. Couldn't explain that easily. Instead, I sit on the porch, and wait for Jimmy.

Eventually, his Marquis pulls into the driveway. Through the windshield, I can make out just how gruesomely beat he was. He gets out of the car with a slight stumble.

"Hey," he says, quietly, not wanting to wake his parents. "Why weren't you wearing a helmet, ol' gal?"

I brush off his light joke, taking in his injuries as blood runs his mouth. "Jimmy..." I say softly.

"Yeah, I know. Don't really wanna hear it." And I oblige, not wanting to kick the guy when he was already down.

I lead him up to his shared bathroom with Chuck, (I thank God that he's off to college right now), and sit him on the closed lid of the toilet.

"Can't say I'm not curious." I say, wetting a washcloth with warm water and pressing it to his face.

"Same shit," he replies, as I tilt back his face, checking his nose for any fractures. Nothing. "I was being stupid. Thought I was being smarter than I actually am."

I nod, not wanting to push any further, knowing he's ashamed enough already.

It takes almost an hour to fix him up completely, plugging up his bleeding nose and bringing him packets of frozen peaches and peas to hold off bruising, even though I know it won't do much in the end.

He really looks bad, but I won't admit it, not wanting to poke his pride anymore. The bruises were already darkening to a spectrum of blues and purples, with the worst of it being around his left eye. His eyebrow had a pretty gnarly cut in it, too, extending almost into his eyelid. I try a few times to secure the two sides with a butterfly bandage, but I give up eventually. Jimmy makes fun of me drunkenly, and I can't help but smile. He smiles back with bloody teeth, and I make that my next obstacle to clean.

"Aw, Kim, you're gonna get my toothbrush all dirty," he argues as I stick the toothbrush into his mouth, attempting to scrub off the dried blood. "Shame." I say, lifting a rinsing cup up to his mouth. "Looks like you'll have to spend a whole dollar on a new one."

When he's all cleaned up, we end up in his room. Sitting on his bed, he changes clothes while I turn the other way. When he gives me the okay, he scrunches up his face.

"Your shirt. It's all bloody." He says meekly, drowsy from the cocktail of Pabst Blue Ribbon and aspirin.

I look down and notice how my tattered t-shirt was freckled with his blood. "You're right." I reply, watching him dig through his dresser for something clean enough for me. He hands me a shirt, and I quickly change, avoiding his glance. I feel him looking at me, and my stomach explodes into butterflies.

"Kim?" he says softly. He's sitting on the edge of his bed, looking worn to the bone, both physically and mentally. "Could you stay with me tonight, maybe?" He sounds so slight. So unlike Jimmy.

I nod, swallowing, trying to wrangle the butterflies. "Yeah. You gotta scoot over though."

He slides over to the wall, and I climb into bed next to him. We lay face to face, softly breathing and looking at each other. There's not much else to look at when you're this close to another person. I take it all in.

"I love you. I love you so, so much, Kim." he murmurs, breaking the silence. My stomach jumps and my heart sinks. "You're drunk."

"That doesn't change my mind."

"Say it in the morning, Jimmy."

"I will." He says with heavy eyes, stroking my hair like I was a porcelain doll. "Don't let me forget, okay?"

"Okay." I whisper, fully knowing I'll never speak of this to him, as much as it hurts. I tell him goodnight, but he's already fallen asleep with his hand tangled in my hair. I keep him there, and spend the rest of the night wishing this could be my reality.

6.

Sometimes after tutoring, Kim and I find ourselves in the basement. Sometimes there's a movie on, and sometimes there's not. Whether the lights are on or not also depends.

Right now, it's a lights-off kind of night, with Animal House flickering in the corner, and the two of us positioned on either side of the couch. We sit in comfortable silence, with the only parts of us touching being the tips of our toes. I want to stretch out and pull her into me and make her mine forever, but I'm too petrified for that. Instead, I pretend she doesn't exist.

I stare at the television intensely, trying to ignore her as she slowly sits up. She's now in the middle of the couch, a foot away from me. Even when I feel her warm hand sliding across the denim couch, I don't break my stare from John Belushi. Kim's fingertips touch my hand.

"Do you want pizza?" I say, watching her face fall in the blue light of the television as I yank my hand back.

"Oh. No, thanks." she says, and I fantasize about all the ways I want to die as I watch her expression change.

"I'll order for you anyways," I say sheepishly, and leave for the kitchen, dialing for some local pizza place. I order whatevers cheapest, and the girl on the other line tells me it'll be there in 45 minutes. I thank her and I return downstairs.

The lights are back on, and Kim's crouched in front of Chuck's record collection. She turns around. "Movie ended."

I nod, sitting on the couch.

"Since when does Chuck like Fleetwood Mac?" Kim asks, holding up a brand-new Rumours vinyl, still in the plastic.

"He doesn't," I say. "Hence the plastic. My mom got it for him. Silly broad must have forgotten he only listens to contemporary jazz."

She smiles slightly at the comment, and I have to look away to keep from my stomach flipping. Too late. The butterflies go wild.

I hear her drop the needle on to the vinyl, and the twangy guitar and voices crackle to life. I feel like my skin is on fire every step she takes towards me. I see her blue jeans in the corner of my eye.

"You're not gonna dance with me, Jimmy?"

She holds her hand out to me casually, and it takes a few seconds for me to regain movement in my body. Standing up, I grab her hand. "No, you're gonna dance with me." (It's a talent of mine to sound normal even with my heart beating out of my chest.)

With our hands joined and held out in front of us, we awkwardly sway together for several minutes. Eye contact is pretty rare, with our combined shyness beating out the warmth felt when we look at each other.

When she glances down, I try and take in everything in front of me. The way her sandy blonde hair is pushed over to the side, and how she has three piercings in her ear. Things I've known for years, but never truly took the time to look at. I'm busy staring at a beauty mark in her hairline when she sets her head against my chest.

I fight the instinct to nervously push her away and say something stupid. Instead, I gently place my hand on her lower back, and try not to vomit up my lunch of lunchroom spaghetti.

We stay like this for the rest of the album, slightly swaying, and her head buried into my shoulder. She doesn't even pull away when the record stops, and static fills the room. I want to stay like this forever.

"You know what?"

"Hm?" Her head is still buried in my neck.

"You never reminded me to tell you that I love you."

She looks up with her doe eyes, withdrawing her head from my shoulder. "What?"

"A few weeks ago, when I was jumped after I was being stupid as always, you had cared for me and we fell asleep together and I told you that I loved you."

My words come out faster than I'm thinking. I can feel my words picking up speed and the loss of pretty much everything I'm saying.

"Do you remember? I remember. You told me that when we woke up, I had to remember to say it. But I was scared to say it Kim, because sometimes getting close to you and telling you nice things can be pretty damn scary. I wanted to remind you, and tell you again, but you didn't remind me, which was pretty rude on your part."

She smiles gently, looking softer than I've ever seen her. "I know," she says, pulling my head down to her height. "I hope you forgive me."

I shrug, feeling a smile spread across my face. "We'll see." I reply. And then I kiss her.

It's my first kiss, and it's with my best friend Kim. It's the best I've ever had.

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed <3  
> (jimmy is hard to write)
> 
> follow me on twitter at @mostexceIIent! (the two Ls are Is cuz i'm sneaky)
> 
> EDIT, July 26: also... this was my first fic that ive written in YEARS. it’s very shabby and it’s very embarrassing to look back on but i’m so glad you’re enjoying it. stay tuned for more mcwexler that aren’t tragically written in first person for some reason lmao


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